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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Ah. I love real people. And by real I mean people that are funny and honest and even though we can be whoever we want online, some people are really themselves. That's why I love this feature by Annie from Originate and Renovate. You'll get to read her feature and know why it's the quilt from H-E-Double in a second...but in case you don't somehow know Annie let me introduce her. First they are one of our lovely sponsors, she and her family own a fabric shop (in person and online) Sew Obsessed. Also her blog Originate and Renovate is a great mix of lifestyle, sewing and family. She's got loads of original tutorials. Make sure to stop by if you haven't before. Okay now read! :)

Edited to add: Some people weren't able to see pictures before, that should be fixed! If you cannot see them please let me know!

On a rare occasion, I see a quilt that I MUST make. That's exactly what happened on a winter's day last year when I first saw Camille Roskelly's June Bug Pattern . Her new fabric line was out and I HAD to have it.

I don't usually buy the same fabrics as the pattern cover, but the springy colors took me away from what seemed like a never ending snow. I bought everything right then and there and set it aside for the perfect quilting day.

A few months later, My sister and I decided to open a fabric shop. We needed to decorate with quilts and I knew which one I wanted to make, so I pulled out the fabric I had been saving and started on the quilting nightmare. I don't mean the pattern. No, the pattern and directions were fabulous.

In fact, the entire quilt top was like a little piece of heaven during a furious race against time to get our shop up and running. It was when I pinned it to the long arm machine to start quilting that all the headaches began. As I quilted along, on the first row, my machine stopped moving! I had a tiny hole in a seam in the quilt top and had ripped it open and attached myself to the batting. I had to CUT to get my machine off! I was some how able to salvage the quilt, but not with out leaving an ugly stitched up mess. I made it through the rest of the quilting process okay, until I pulled it off the machine and saw that I had attached my backing with the seam out!! There was no going back at this point, the entire thing was quilted. Then I started to look at my quilting and lo and behold a giant 10" x 5" gap with NO QUILTING.

I am no perfectionist, but this was out of hand. Too frustrated to look at this quilt for a moment longer and I sent down to my mother in Las Vegas to bind and hang in the shop. She said the binding was a huge pain and she wasn't sure why, I informed her the quilt was cursed. When it was finally finished, my Sister hung it on the shop wall very crooked and meant to rehang it, but got busy doing other things and before she could get to it, who walked into the shop to check out the new fabric store in town, CAMILLE ROSKELLY!

I wish this were all a joke. The most ironic part of this quilt is the fact that the fabric it's made from is called "Bliss". Bliss!!! I think not.

Despite all the problems this quilt has, it now hangs in my daughters nursery and looks darling (if you don't look too closely). Every time someone compliments it, I have to laugh, because in this quilts case, life gave me lemonade and I some how made a lemon.

I love it! That you still have the quilt is a testament to your love/hate relationship with your quilt. We all too often have one of those. Now you can always look at what you are working on and know you've already been through the worst!(p.s. I also can't see the photos on Quilt Story, but I'm going to see if I can see them on the blog)Mary